Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January-June 2007 efforts to: recruit a number of Roma teaching assistants that meets the needs; improve participation of Roma children in pre-school education; extend provision of Romani language classes; ensure that curricula for all children reflect Roma culture, history and identity and promote appreciation for diversity. In April a Law on the Romani Community in the Republic of Slovenia entered into force with the purpose of regulating the legal status of the Romani community. The Law has a very limited number of provisions dealing with the inclusion of Roma in education which stipulate that the Republic of Slovenia should create the conditions for the inclusion of Roma in education and for an improvement in their educational level including through a policy of scholarships. The Law however does not define in detail the framework through which the right to education of members of Romani communities is to be fully realized. In June residents of Cesta v Gorice, on the outskirts of Ljubljana, protested against plans to resettle there members of the Strojan family, who had previously lived in the village of Ambrus. Since October 2006, they had mostly continued to live in temporary accommodation after having been forced to leave their homes under police escort, when targeted in ethnically motivated attacks by ethnic Slovenes. Impunity remained for the perpetrators of ethnically motivated attacks which had forced the Strojan family to leave Ambrus. SPAIN General background Basque Country issues Following the attack of the armed group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) on the airport in Madrid on 30 December 2006 the Spanish president, José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, declared an end to the dialogue process opened following the group’s declaration of a permanent ceasefire on 22 March 2006. On 5 June ETA formally Amnesty International 115 announced in the media that it was ending its ceasefire. Elections in the autonomous community of the Basque Country were held on 27 May. In the run up to the elections legal action was brought by the public prosecutor against two parties presenting candidates in the Basque Country region. In the case of the Basque Patriotic Socialist Union (Abertzale Sozialisten Batasuna, ASB) the public prosecutor argued that the newly formed party was a de facto continuation of the banned Batasuna party, allegedly the political wing of ETA, and as such should be banned outright from the elections. The second case concerned the Basque Nationalist Action (Acción Nacionalista Vasca- Eusko Abertzale Ekintza, ANV-EAE) party, which has operated legally for a number of years. The prosecutor argued that many of its lists of candidates had been “infiltrated” by former Batasuna members. On 5 May the Supreme Court ruled unanimously to ban all 246 candidature lists presented by ASB and 133 of the ANV’s lists. The ANV appealed against this decision to the Constitutional Court, but on 10 May the decision of the Supreme Court was confirmed. AI has previously raised concerns that the ambiguity of the 2003 Law on Political Parties could lead to the banning of parties which had similar goals to armed groups but did not condone or use violence, in violation of the Spanish Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In June the main spokesman for the banned Batasuna party Arnaldo Otegi, was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment and seven years barring from public office on charges of “glorifying terrorism” as a result of his tribute to an ETA activist on the 25th anniversary of his death. Migration Statistics available at the start of the year from the Canary Islands Autonomous Community government confirmed that the AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007